


Next Time

by MagpieWords



Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/F, Female Bruce Banner, Female Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Possibly Unrequited Love, Scars, Seer and Canvas, Soulmates, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, because sometimes you write about a soulmate trope youve never heard of before, i didnt mean for this to become tony stark and pepper potts best friend power hour but oh well, we love pepper potts in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieWords/pseuds/MagpieWords
Summary: Five times Toni Stark looks for her soulmate, and one time her soulmate finally looks for her too.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Tony Stark, Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, Happy Hogan/Pepper Potts, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860265
Kudos: 39
Collections: AUgust 2020





	Next Time

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you write more words in one weekend than you have in months because soulmate aus are your weakness, and that's fine. My specific fixation on genderbent soulmate aus of these two characters specifically occasionally gets out of hand...
> 
> This is almost more of a character study than anything else.
> 
> Also, if anyone has seen the Seer/Canvas AU idea somewhere before, could you please let me know? I have no clue where this idea came from...

Mr. Jarvis always thought children were taught about soulmates far too young. His own mother had explained only when Edwin had asked her why he had more freckles on one day than he had the day before.

“You counted your freckles?” His mother had asked, but then she looked up from her cross stitch and realized how different her son’s face looked. Once sprinkled with a few pale dots across the bridge of his nose, he was now covered forehead to chin in dark spots. “Oh. Your soulmate must have had a very wonderful day.”

He must have been nine or ten, a proper age, if someone had bothered to ask him. But, of course, Howard rarely asked for the butler’s opinion about the raising of his child, despite the butler being the one to do the raising.

“Sir, I really don’t think—”

“Jarv, please, look how excited she is?”

Howard wasn’t wrong, of course. Tiny Antonia was barely four, but smiled up at him with a clarity behind her eyes that he rarely saw from most of the adults he knew. “Yeah Jarv, please?”

He sighed, sitting on the ground next to both of them. Howard leaned in, whispering the true motivation that Jarvis already knew was behind this. “We gotta figure out which one she is before she’s on camera again. I don’t want a big bruise showing up in the middle of a photoshoot or for a vision to freak her out on live TV.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Now, Toni, I want you to close your eyes.”

Immediately, she did.

“Your mother talked to you about her freckles, right?”

“And Ana too.” She peaked one eye open and grinned at her butler.

“Eyes closed,” Howard barked and Toni’s smile disappeared. “Okay, so when your mother or Mr. Jarvis get a new freckle, it means something has happened to me or Mrs. Jarvis, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s the past. That’s half of the soul bond. What’s the opposite of the past?”

“The future.” She cracked one eye open again. “Can you and Ana see into the future?”

“Yes, now keep your damn eyes closed.” Howard ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Jarv, can you get me a drink?”

“Now?”

Howard just shot him a look and Jarvis sighed as he got back to his feet. By the time he came back, whiskey glass and juice box both balanced on a serving tray, Toni’s face was screwed up tight and Howard had taken to pacing behind her.

“Antonia, you’re not trying. Do you want a soulmate or not?”

“I do!” She wailed. “What if I’m not a Seerer?”

“You don’t have a single fucking freckle, so either you match is an ugly son of a bitch or you’re a Seerer. Now, focus.” He took the whiskey off Jarvis’s tray without so much as a thank you.

Jarvis set the juice box within reach of the young girl and knelt down in front of her. “Try clearing your mind, young miss.”

She whined, tears forming at the edges of her sealed shut eyes. “It’s hard.”

“I know. Can you take a deep breath with me?” He took an over-exaggerated breath, holding in the air until she matched him and they breathed out slowly together.

The sharp clink of the whiskey glass hitting the table made Toni flinch. “Don’t bother with that hippie mumbo jumbo, Jarv. She’s a fuckin’ Canvas. And no offense to you but that is the last goddamn thing I need right now.”

Jarvis didn’t have a second to be insulted by that before Toni gasped. “I see something!”

“Oh thank fuck.” Howard collapsed back onto one of the couches.

“What do you see, Toni?” Jarvis asked. Toni squinted harder, tears finally spilling over her still chubby cheeks.

“Earth? No, but it’s brown. Brown and black and… woodchips? Woodchips and stairs. A slide!” Toni’s eyes opened and she jumped to her feet, knocking over the juicebox. She grabbed Jarvis’s hand, tears forgotten as she tried to pull him up. “She’s at the park! Let’s go, let’s go I wanna meet her!”

“Goddamnit, Toni, that rug is worth more than your college account!” Howard shouted as the juice settled into a stain. Despite its worth, he didn’t move to get something to clean it with. “What did you say ‘she’? Jesus Christ, now my kid’s a lesbian? This is the last thing I need.”

With that, he did get up, distantly shouting for another member of the staff to get the rug dry cleaned as he wandered towards his office. Toni hadn’t noticed his tirade, too busy pulling Jarvis towards the door.

“Slow down, little miss. We don’t even know which park she’s at.”

“Then we’ll go to all of them!”

Jarvis laughed and scooped Toni up into his arms. “The future isn’t a fixed thing. It’s likely your soulmate will be at a park today, but we can’t be sure.”

“But it’s worth trying, isn’t it?” 

“Of course. Not today though. We don’t know what park or what time your soulmate might be there. And, any minute now, you’ll have earned yourself a right headache for all that Seeing you did.”

“Oh, Ana told me about those.” Toni frowned, rubbing at her temples the way Jarvis imagined his wife did when he was away on a mission for too long.

“We’ll get you a new juice box and something soft to curl up in. And the next time you See, you’ll notice more. When in the day, which park. It’ll be easier later.”

“I don’t wanna wait til later. I want to meet her now,” Toni whined, even as her eyes squeezed shut against the too bright lights of the foyer. Jarvis started making his way towards the main staircase, up towards her bedroom.

“I know, little miss. But she’ll be worth the wait. And you’re so young, you have all the time in the world.”

* * *

Time was something Jarvis was constantly reminding her of. She would have time to play outside after the gala. She still had a few weeks to make friends even though her first year of boarding school was nearly over. She could look for her soulmate after her homework was done. She only had two hours before her father would be home and expect everyone at the dinner table.

Sometimes Toni pushed backed. She asked Jarvis how much time until the cookies were done baking. She told him there were only a few weeks until she would get to hug him during the holidays. She begged him for five more minutes as she finished her latest midnight project before bed.

Neither of them had any guess for how quickly time ran out.

Toni was halfway through her doctorate when the call came in that her entire world had ended. Ana and Edwin Jarvis, gone in an instant, along with her parents. It was so sudden, she didn’t have time to feel anything about it. Didn’t have time to cry at the funerals.

There was plenty of time for alcohol when she returned to campus. She was in the right place, the right time, with the probably-right people. Though her friends were all freshmen, she could finally say she had friends her own age. That alone was thrilling, even if any emotion that tried to call itself ‘thrilling’ was but a distant echo in her mind. She hadn’t really felt anything since she got the call.

“Canvas or Seer?” One of the newer transfer students at the party asked her. It was a very personal question, but all questions found themselves become personal with a high enough BAC.

“Seer.” Even saying that used to give her such pain. Now she just felt nothing.

“Finally!” The transfer shouted, grabbing Toni’s hand in her own and hoisting it in the air. “Guys, I found one!”

The novelty of not being known as ‘Toni Stark, Prodigy and Heiress’ was able to pierce the veil of apathy that Toni was pretty sure she’d be wearing to her own funeral, so she let herself be dragged across the party. It was another unknown room with more unknown faces that she wasn’t about to be bothered with learning. She arched a brow as they stared at her, waiting for whatever stunt they wanted her to pull. She had time to kill.

“Toni, right? You’re my TA in Engineering 404.” One of the other strangers asked. Toni nodded and the stranger grinned. “Oh rad! Okay, and you’ve got that sick car, right?”

Toni felt sick at the idea of anything motor vehicle related, but she nodded again. The students cheered. “Is there a prize for this game of twenty questions? Otherwise, I’m not really interested,” she said.

“Right right, okay,” the girl who originally dragged Toni over stood in front of her, swaying a little from the intoxicating combination of excitement and, well, intoxicants. “It’s Pam’s birthday.” She gestured to a girl named Pam and Toni made a point to immediately forget that information. “And she’s a Canvas, but she only knows that because of the freckles. No other scars, never any bruises, nothing. Her match must live in a bubble.”

Toni distantly wondered about her own match, if all the scars that she’d earned were something her Canvas wore with pride or hated and hid away. Given how many Toni had, it was probably the latter. She’d have time to apologize when they met.

“So,” The girl had kept talking but Toni was only now tuning back in. “If you’re okay with it, of course, we want to see a Match tonight! Can you see into the future right now?”

Toni glanced into her empty solo cup. She’d have to wander all the way back through the party for a refill. The drinks here weren’t strong enough anyway. “Yeah sure.”

The small crowd of undergrads cheered as she closed her eyes. There hadn’t been much time since starting college to give her Match more than a passing glance, checking that she was more or less safe. Toni didn’t spend much time looking at the details, couldn’t afford a headache that would make her miss something more exciting. Now though, she couldn’t imagine anything exciting worth missing. Might as well make herself into a nice party trick.

“A diner,” she muttered, and the cheering fell silent. It seemed, like even the music thrumming from the other rooms of the frat house had become quieter. “Never seen her in a diner before.”

“Is there a window?” One of the undergrads asked. “Can you see a street sign?”

Toni let the chatter of finding maps and compiling directions wash over her, ignored like white noise. There was a window. A neon sign with the name of the diner and a faded ‘Welcome to The Electric City’ highway indicator.

“She’s in Pennsylvania?” That actually wasn’t too far away. The undergrads seemed to piece that together too. Their chattering grew louder but Toni held up a hand. She needed to focus. “I need the time…”

“It’s almost two am,” someone offered uselessly. She knew what time it was now, but it wouldn’t matter how close her match was if she was gone before Toni got there. She turned, bumping into a table that didn’t exist in the little Scranton diner. A red clock blinked in the kitchen, partly obscured by the steam rising off overcooked eggs on the griddle, but clear enough to read. Five fifteen. In the morning, certainly, since there wasn’t even a hint of sunlight outside that diner.

“I can make it,” Toni whispered. She turned back around, a hand she couldn’t see steadying her. Her match’s plate only had crumbles left, and the check already had cash sitting on top of it.

Toni opened her eyes, letting the vision fade. “We’re leaving right now. Either keep up or don’t.” She hardly saw the gaggle of students around her as she walked out of the party. Once she was on the sidewalk, she broke into a run.

Only four students piled into her car, parked on the other side of campus. All winded, one of whom might have been the birthday girl who started this whole thing, but Toni didn’t care. Barely waited for their seatbelts to click before peeling onto the road.

She shouldn’t be driving again, not so soon. She’d walked more in the last few weeks than she probably had her entire life. Her heels were as dusty as this car, but as her ugly tennis shoes slammed on the gas, Toni couldn’t find it in herself to care.

Gas, however, turned out to be just the problem. “Toni, I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere, please pull over for gas.”

She grumbled about wasting time, but the unnamed undergrad had a point - she wouldn’t get to her match if she got stranded somewhere. The drive should have taken four hours, but even as her brain rattled against the side of her skull, they made it in just over three. The outskirts of Scranton, Pennsylvania were a depressing place, not exactly Toni’s first choice for meeting her Canvas. Street lights struggled to stay on and the irony of being called ‘The Electric City’ would have been funnier if Toni was able to see clearly. Her headache took a turn for the worse at the two hour mark, but the undergrads were wise enough not to comment as she swerved down the highway with a confidence she probably didn’t deserve..

How annoying that the shrink who suggested exposure therapy wasn’t a quack.

Toni skidded into the diner parking lot, one wheel popped onto the curb as she parked. One of the back doors opened in time with her own, and she heard the sound of retching onto the pavement. Smart kids, she thought as she sprinted into the diner. They clearly knew better than to cough anything up on her leather seats. They might actually be worth showing up for her TA position

Then again, she could always finish her doctorate after a few years of honeymooning with her match.

The diner was just as dingy as it had been in the vision and Toni looked first to the clock in the kitchen. The steam was long gone, the numbers clear as the writing on Jarvis’s grave. Five twenty.

All the booths were empty. The lone waitress could be seen out the window, on a smoke break. One table had yet to be cleared.

Her match left a good tip, Toni was glad to see that. She liked tea instead of coffee. Asked for no bacon, but when it was delivered anyway, she left it untouched. Toni sat down and took a bite of it. No signature on the receipt, still no name. That was okay though, she tried to tell herself. She drove in a car, should have crashed five times worse than her parents did as she ducked between all those semitrucks. She wasn’t dead. She still had all the time in the world.

* * *

She had been so certain that the doctoral program would be the most time consuming part of her life. She was finally doing something at a non-accelerated pace, but it was worse than graduating MIT’s hardest degree in half the time. It was worse than trying to plan four funerals.

And it was nothing compared to running a company. Toni only looked for her soulmate once since taking over Stark Industries, but she’d been interrupted by her secretary before she could see anything more than the art her match kept on the wall of her apartment. Said secretary had been fired, but then immediately rehired because, despite Toni’s annoyance, Pepper had been right that it was an important meeting she couldn’t be late to.

With Pepper on her team, the company became easier to juggle. She never asked her secretary The Question, though not from any sense of decorum. Miss Potts had seen Toni in all manners of debauchery and intoxication (usually with offers for Pepper to join, which were always declined) that Toni wasn’t worried about offending any sensibilities. No, she simply didn’t need to ask. Pepper’s cheeks were dotted with lovely freckles. There were days, always warm ones in the Malibu sun, that she wore gloves. New scars stood out brighter than older ones, and Toni tried to respect the boundaries Pepper had set. But the curiosity of her match, if her fingers held blisters from a violinist or cuts from a chef, if her knuckles were bruised or her palms held rope burns.

Being a Canvas wasn’t easy, Toni knew that, but she’d love to have a tapestry of secrets from her match instead of a headache every time she tried to look into another person’s life.

So when an unknown man ran into her office and grabbed the sundial off her desk, Toni couldn’t find herself to be surprised. “Miss Potts will be here in five minutes,” she said, and the man collapsed into a nearby chair.

“Thank you.”

She let him have a moment to breathe, before making her way over. “I assume you know who I am.” She held out a hand and he took it. No more bruises, but Toni could tell he was a boxer before he threw on this suit.

“I do. My name’s Hogan. I, uh, promise I’ll do well by Miss Potts.” He said her name like he could taste how sweet the words were and Toni made an effort to avoid tightening her grip on his hand.

“Miss Potts can handle her own, as I’m sure you know.”

Mr. Hogan grinned and Toni knew she had nothing to worry about.

The following weeks left her largely without company and frustratingly distracted. She could hardly scribble down a blueprint without her hands shaking. Finding herself stuck overnight in DC certainly wasn’t helping. At least when she was home she could usually find reprieve in her machines. Her hands always managed to stay steady holding a screwdriver or a welding torch.

Instead, she let herself fall back on the overly plush bed of her hotel room. She flew back tomorrow, Pepper would be back from her vacation, everything would go back to normal. She closed her eyes, figuring she could sleep the evening away, but darkness refused to take her vision.

Seeing had become easier over the years, she didn’t need to concentrate as much to do it, but now was really not the time. Still, it might alleviate her boredom. Her match was usually reading a book or something relaxing that could lull Toni right to sleep without even worrying about trying to find her.

Instead, this vision was filled with lights and sound. It was muted, likely from her lack of concentration, but Toni could put the pieces together. “A nightclub?” She’d never seen her match somewhere like that.

Glancing around, there was a banner hanging over the bar. ‘Annual Queer Disco: New Millennium.’ How vintage, Toni mused, feeling herself smile. She didn’t know her match liked disco. Or that her match was out, which would make meeting much less awkward. The last few decades had not been kind to their community.

Toni sat up on the bed, smoothing out her breathing as she tried to focus. The vision stayed hazy, but she was able to catch a time on the bartender’s watch. Just after midnight; she’d have four hours and no undergrads slowing her down. She just needed a location. It was getting harder to keep her breathing steady, the urge to find her match clouding her sight. It was nearly impossible to see a window from the bar, but maybe something else could tell her where this was. If it was Scranton again, she could rent a car and drive there from DC. She would have enough time.

A framed review on the wall. The text was too far away to read, but the headline declared this place as one of the ‘top ten hot spots in Norfolk’. Norfolk, Virginia, if she was lucky. Another glance at the bar, someone setting down an emptied glass of beer, and Toni could read the logo of the establishment. Well, it was either the establishment or the glassmaker, but it was better than nothing.

She opened her eyes and scrambled to open her laptop. The clunky technology ate away at her time while it booted up, and Toni vowed to reinvent that particular industry once she wrapped her latest military project. She could build a laptop in between missiles, it’d be easy.

Finally, with an address in hand, she sped off to the bar. Her usual business outfit of painted on jeans, a grunge metal t-shirt, and a blazer stood no chance of fitting in a disco dance, but wasting time getting dressed would be pointless. Hopefully, it would still be a good first impression for her match.

That was all she could think of on the drive over, putting the little rental car through the wringer and she pushed into triple digit speeds. She would not be late this time. Sliding up to the nearest valet and tossing the keys, Toni ran into the bar. Not even eleven o’clock yet, she had time.

Taking a seat at the bar, she ordered a drink and sat down to wait. The music was, again, not what she preferred, but she could imagine herself dancing to it with her match. Paparazzi hadn’t tracked her out here, so it might actually be a nice night.

The clock struck eleven, then twelve. Toni scanned the bar, waiting and watching. She wasn’t late this time, she couldn’t have missed her match. She knew exactly who she was looking for. Toni had caught glimpses of her match’s reflection, in bathroom mirrors or the still water of a cold cup of tea. She knew who she was looking for, she was sure of it. And she had not taken her eyes off this bar, there was no way Toni couldn’t have missed her match tonight.

Taking a breath, she closed her eyes. Maybe her match had chosen a different spot in the club than at the bar. It hurt, pushing for the immediate future rather than whatever her mind’s eye could catch, but alcohol could drown out her headache later. Instead of the club she was standing in, instead of the haze from her previous vision, what she saw now was crystal clear. She saw her match’s apartment. A bottle of Xanax was opened on the coffee table and dance shoes had been discarded in the narrow hall between the front door and the living room.

It had yet to happen, since Toni had never been this close to success before, but she remembered one of Jarvis’s warnings. The past may be written upon a Canvas, but the future is never set in stone. A Seer views a possible reality, a likely opportunity, but it’s not uncommon for their partner to change their mind. 

“A night of dancing is a little too much for her.” Toni didn’t know why she was surprised, that completely made sense with the tea and the books and the tiny apartments with cookie cutter Ikea art. “What an odd match we are.”

The bartender hadn’t heard her musings, so Toni flagged him over. Might as well make it a nice night for herself. A disco wasn’t her first pick, but she felt right at home with the deafening music and strobing lights. She would catch her flight back to Malibu in the morning, and find time for her match later. It’s not like the little bookworm was going anywhere.

* * *

Her match was going somewhere, Toni could tell that much. A Seer’s vision was rarely more than a half day into the future, but after a particularly enlightening trip with what may or may not have been a desert cult, Toni saw further ahead than she’d ever thought possible.

“An acid trip is not part of being a Seerer, Toni!” Pepper yelled, not having moved from her spot on the couch as she juggled three different media teams.

“It wasn’t acid,” she replied, sliding a few more luxuries into her online shopping cart of apologies. Pepper was as unamused by that response as Toni thought she would be.

Once the fire of ‘Stark CEO goes on drug rager’ was out of the headlines and their stock was out of the gutter, Pepper was the one to bring up the issue again. “Pep, I said I was sorry. No more hard drugs, I did the rehab, I–”

“Actually,” she interrupted softly. It seemed like every day she had more freckles dotting her cheeks. It was nice to see, even if jealousy ran through Toni’s veins like something stronger than the drugs. “I did some research. You were so… Well, you were on a lot of substances and so help me, Toni, I will hold you to that ‘no hard drugs’ promise.”

Toni held up her hands in surrender and Pepper’s tone softened again. “You were so worried about your match so I did some research into long distance visions. Turns out they’re– well they’re not common and the research strongly recommends avoiding using psychedelics to achieve them. But they are possible.”

It took Toni a moment to process what Pepper was saying. “Oh.”

“Yeah. You saw a date, when you told me about it. Just over a year from today. Do you want me to cancel your meetings?”

“No.” Toni did stand up though. “Just, uh, can you clear tomorrow for me? Just tomorrow.”

“Toni, if your match is in danger–”

“Will that be all, Mrs. Hogan?”

“That will be all, Miss Stark.” Pepper’s sad smile said everything Toni didn’t need to hear. A year was all the time in the world. Toni Stark would only need a day.

She put away the project she’d been deep into when Pepper came in and closed her eyes. It wasn’t too late in the afternoon, maybe she could join her match for dinner. As if the fates had aligned, a restaurant was exactly what Toni saw. Her match was still outside, so there were no clocks Toni could see. Judging by where the sun was, though, it was only an hour or two from now.

“Shit,” Toni mumbled, ready to open her eyes again. Her match was clearly based on the east coast, she couldn’t get over there in time. She’d have to try again; it would be worth the headache.

Before she broke the vision, however, she caught sight of a street sign. Pacific Coast Highway. She looked around, spinning in a blind circle in her workshop, staring at an intersection she drove through at least once a week. She could be there in minutes.

Opening her eyes, Toni started towards the garage before skidding to a stop. She actually had time. She could afford to go meet her match in something nicer than tattered jeans and a threadbare tank top. She could bother to throw on a bra.

She ran up the stairs, past Pepper who was busy on her tablet. “Where’s the fire?” She laughed and Toni laughed too.

“I have a date!”

“Wha– oh! That was fast!” Pepper was on her feet, the click of heels told Toni she was following. “Let me help with your hair!”

In record time, she was ready. Not too fancy, Toni knew her match wasn’t really a fan of glitz and glamour, but nice. A bra and a tie, shoes that only cost half of someone’s rent instead of rent five times over. Nice.

With a wave to Pepper, she sped off. The hot rod red convertible was probably too fancy, but it was that or the Porsche so Pepper told her this was the smarter choice. The drive down the highway made her feel more alive than she had in years. Finally, no more being late. The sun was still above the waves. Toni Stark was going to see her match in person.

The car parked and the pay stand ignored, Toni dashed into traffic towards the restaurant. It was a nice place, for being off the highway. Beach town vibes. Not Toni’s first choice for date night, but she was definitely more in favor of this than the disco. Her heels clicked against the pavement until all the sound faded away as she saw familiar curls of mousey brown hair. She nearly tripped, cheap shoes feeling impossible to move in. That was her match. She was even more beautiful than the half glances from the visions. She was here, Toni was here. Finally, finally she was seeing her, not Seeing her.

She was also seeing that her match was not dining alone.

There was, of course, a chance that it wasn’t a date. It could have been a business meeting; Toni was pretty sure her match worked in government or something equally security intensive with all the paperwork and clearance badges she’d seen. Government types could take vacations across the country, for business or pleasure, it could be either.

But then her match laughed, placing a hand on the person across from her. Toni felt her heart race and freeze all at once. That laugh was like music, like what hymns were supposed to sound like. In all a Seer’s visions, there was never anything to hear.

And yet, the laugh wasn’t for her. This other person seemed, well, pleasant enough. Well dressed, good taste in wine from the bottle on the table. She knew her match didn’t drink, so her date must have chosen. Maybe that’s what they were laughing about, what they’d do with a bottle just for one person. Her date had probably never gone to rehab.

Toni could walk in there. She was her match, after all. By all rights, she should walk in there. This nice dinner, with the waves of the ocean heard just over the delicate clinking of silverware, should be her charming first date. Not this stranger who knew nothing about her match. Toni started towards the front door.

But she stopped. Plenty of matches dated other people before they met– Toni certainly had. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was how nice it was. Nicer than a park, than a diner, than a disco dance. It would be the perfect place to meet. But what kind of first meeting would interrupting a date be?

Toni took a breath and closed her eyes. Her match was on a plane sometime tomorrow, so she wouldn’t be in town much longer. No one was next to her on the flight, so this date probably wouldn’t be around next time.

Toni would talk to her next time.

* * *

Time, as it always seemed to be, was rarely in Toni’s favor. While her match flew out of Los Angeles the next day, Toni was informed of her board attempting to vote her out of the company. This, of course, was something they tried every few years, too old and idiotic to realize this company would collapse without her. The next several months were spent juggling that with Pepper, then Rhodey was back on shore leave which stole Toni’s attention for another month, and then R&D needed help with the new StarkPhone two weeks before launch. It was a whirlwind of time before she was in a review session with Pepper and an alarm went off on her right hand’s phone.

“Oh fuck, what now?” Toni let her head fall forward onto the glass conference room table.

“Oh fuck, I forgot about this.” Toni cursed all the time, but Pepper rarely did. She slid all the papers scattered across the table back into their folders.

“What takes priority over–”

“Your match.”

Toni tilted her head “What about her?”

“The vision you had, about something happening to her. It’s tomorrow.”

“You set an alert for that?”

Pepper looked wounded. “I set alerts for everything, Miss Stark.”

“Of course, but this isn’t–” Toni didn’t get to finish as Pepper grabbed her bicep and dragged her out of the conference room. “Where are we going?”

“Home. You have some Seeing to do and you’ll need me for research and damage control.”

“Pepper, stop, it’s not that important.”

They stopped short and Toni nearly tripped over her own converse while Pepper never once faltered in her stilettos. “Stop saying that. I know everyone has told you what’s important, that soulmates can wait for work to be done. For every time I’ve said that to you, Toni, I am sorry.”

Toni couldn’t remember the last time Pepper apologized to her. Pepper had never needed to. Toni wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear that ever again. “Pep–”

“I’m not done.” And Toni fell silent again. Pepper resumed her grip on Toni’s arm, walking and talking as they moved towards the building’s garage. “The vision you told me about was fuzzy, so maybe it won't happen. But you were also high out of your mind and a chance of what you described isn’t worth the risk. Matches are important. I didn’t realize they were until I met Happy, but goddamnit Toni, I will not let you wait any longer.”

“Do not lecture me about the restaurant again.”

“I don’t have to.” Pepper slid into the driver seat, despite Toni’s obvious protest. “Focus on the future, Seer. I’ll handle the rest.”

Toni closed her eyes, letting the hum of the engine fade into the background. She could already feel a headache spike behind her eyes, already grateful that Pepper mentioned damage control because with what she was trying to do, Toni wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk, let alone travel to wherever her match was.

She lucked out on the first vision, crystal clear with a certainty of where her match would be. The trick would be figuring out where that was. Toni had seen this apartment before, her match had been living here for years now, but usually kept the curtains closed. There was no indicator of where this was outside these four walls.

“Try a different time, when she’s leaving the apartment.” Pepper had a hand on the small of Toni’s back, guiding her to the couch. She hadn’t even noticed they’d gotten out of the car.

“Are you crazy? Pep, I can’t just–”

“Try.” There was no arguing with that tone. Toni opened her eyes, wincing as even the dim light of her home drove daggers into her brain. She took a breath and watched Pepper start coordinating the private plane on her tablet, while Google Earth was open on her computer. Toni wanted to meet her match, there was no doubt about that, but even if she missed this chance again, she felt matched enough with Pepper in her life.

She closed her eyes again, squinting as she pushed her brain to move to tomorrow. It was impossibly hard to aim for a specific time, Toni was never quite sure how to do it. Should she think about how her match took her tea? That she never ordered bacon? Her headache burned behind her eyes, a bright and sharp pain, but Toni pushed on. The outside of a building came into view. Her match had car keys in hand.

“She drives a Prius.” Not Toni’s first choice.

“Can you get a license plate?”

Toni squinted and winced, the pain ramping up. “Uh, it’s Virginia, I think? Ow, fuck.” She had to open her eyes, hands leaving their meditative spot on her thighs and coming up to rub the bridge of her nose. 

“You’re doing great,” Pepper said. Then there was a glass in Toni’s line of sight. “Drink this.”

Toni shot Pepper a surprised look, then drank and the look turned disappointed. Water was not what she expected. Catching a look at the living room, Pepper had moved the coffee table and every other chair but the loveseat they were on. Her computer was balanced on one knee, the tablet on another. More glasses of water lined the floor space directly next to the small couch, safe from being knocked over.

“Are we sure Happy can’t just share you?”

“Focus.” Pepper took the half emptied glass from Toni and put a hand over her eyes. In the darkness, Toni’s headache retreated enough for her to manage another deep breath before pushing into another vision.

“Inside the building this time, but not in the apartment. She’s room six-one-six.” The numbers swam in her vision, crystal clear but melting against her skull. The pain was broken up by a slight giggle. “Her doormat says whale-come in the shape of a–.”

“Is there a window?”

Toni stood from the couch, wandering the narrow hallway of the apartment complex. “Yes!” She ran, only stopping at a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve got a foot in the fireplace.”

Toni took a step back. “Thanks.” Her eyes remained closed as she took another breath. Keeping her feet planted, she leaned towards the window. “Definitely Virginia. I see a bar across the street, but no tall buildings. She’s outside any major city.”

There was a flurry of typing, then “Jarvis, are you getting anything?”

“No, Mrs. Hogan. Though I have narrowed the results. Miss, can you see any street signs?”

Toni squinted towards an intersection and felt her knees buckle. “Fuck.” She opened her eyes. “Pep, I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can, Toni. We’re almost there.” Pepper was back on the couch, tablet discarded and her focus on the computer. “Jet’ll be ready in an hour.”

“I will not be ready in an hour.” Toni considered crawling towards the glasses of water, but curling up into a ball sounded much more appealing.

“That’s what the flight’s for. Come on. Street sign, apartment name, license plate. Any of those will do.” Pepper clapped her hands, the same way she did to motivate the new interns every fall, and Toni flinched.

“I take back what I said, Hap can keep you.” Even so, Toni closed her eyes again. The pain was unbearable. The vision was clear but Toni’s vision was swimming. “Shit, I’m in the apartment again.”

“Try again.”

She felt Pepper kneel next to her, could feel the pleasant chill of a glass near her hands. Opening her eyes felt impossible though. She wanted the vision to stop, but the fear of light piercing her retinas was unbearable.

“Toni, come on.”

Toni didn’t mind curling up in her match’s apartment. She couldn’t feel the cheap tile, so it was cozy enough to lie on the floor. “Wait.” Something else was on the floor. Papers were scattered about, like her match had thrown them about the room in a rage. And one was sitting right in front of her. It was mostly unreadable, in the state Toni’s mind was in, but the format was clear enough. Toni herself had signed thousands of them. Government consent forms, trading intellectual property rights for profit. And, just like how every one of hers felt like a deal with the devil, there was a signature on the bottom. For the first time in her life, Toni had a Seen something that would be helpful no matter how much time she had left.

“I’ve got a name.”

The flight was, as Toni predicted, nightmarish. Happy all but carried her into her seat, which Toni immediately slid out of to curl up on the floor. “Miss Stark, you won't be safe during take off if we–”

“Pepper,” Toni whined, “make him stop.”

There must have been a silent conversation, the kind only matches seemed to have, but Happy left her to the floor. Toni smiled, for a fraction of a second, realizing she might get to have one of those conversations soon. Then she sobbed, the tiny movement of her face making the pain radiate behind her skull anew.

Sometime before they landed, Pepper dragged her to her feet, helping her look presentable. By the time they were in Virginia, the sun was rising with an unfriendly force that made Toni consider buying out her sunglasses’ manufacturer. Happy drove them to the address Jarvis had found in association with the name Briana Banner.

Then Toni found herself alone, knocking on the door to apartment six-one-six at six in the morning. “Gimme a minute!” The first shouted words from her soulmate and Toni bit down the urge to laugh herself into hysterics.

When the door opened, Briana stood there in a bathrobe. Her hair was completely untamed, curls standing in all directions. She looked furious. She looked beautiful.

“Oh wow.” Even with her sunglasses, Toni was still starstruck.

“Ma’am, do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Ungodly, I imagine,” Toni managed to say. That earned a snort of laughter from Briana and Toni nearly melted. “Miss Banner, I’ll just cut to the chase–”

“How do you know my name?” She didn’t seem to be conscious of how she closed the door slightly, keeping Toni a bay.

No point in sugar coating it now, Toni figured, not like she’d have much skill in sugar coating anything with how much her head was pounding. “I’m your soulmate.”

The blurted out words hung in the air for a moment. In the movies, the music swelled and the couple would kiss. Any second now, Toni though, just had a wait a little longer. Instead, Briana’s brow furrowed.

“No you’re not. I don’t have a soulmate.”

Plenty of people didn’t have soulmates, were neither Seer nor Canvas with no match looking for them. The phenomena wasn’t common, but wasn’t rare. It wasn’t something a person had doubts about, however. And Briana spoke with the confidence of a person Toni would truly have believed didn’t have a soulmate if she didn’t have the obvious proof otherwise.

“Uh, yes, you do. This isn’t my first choice for how our relationship should start, so I don’t mean to be rude, but how do you think I found your apartment?”

“I think,” Briana threw back, “that you’re stalking me. You’re working with pharma or fossil fuels or whoever, and they’re trying to destroy my work.”

Toni let herself smile. “Hey, any enemy of big oil is a friend of mine.”

“I know who you are. Sunglasses and bedhead aren’t going to hide the most famous woman in the world. You’re worse than big oil.”

That stung, though Toni couldn’t say Briana was wrong. It didn’t really feel like eye contact with her sunglasses on, but Toni dipped her gaze away from her match’s face. The ‘whale-come’ mat brought a smile to her lips though.

“Look, I have to get ready for work. I might not have visions of the future, or whatever, but I know I’m about to have a breakthrough today. So if you’ll excuse me–” She went to close the door but Toni slammed her foot in the way.

“No, wait wait wait. You’re not the Seerer because I’m the Seerer. You’re the Canvas.”

Briana scoffed, and no matter how harsh the sound was, Toni still felt herself smitten with it. She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and the extra light made her realize something she hadn’t noticed in all of her visions. Briana Banner did not have a single freckle on her face.

“Oh really, I’m a Canvas?” She held out her arm and pushed up her sleeve. “You want to point out which one of these are yours then?”

Funny enough, Toni could identify some of her own scars on Briana’s skin. A drunken night in the lab, a prototype gone wrong, Howard having a bad day. But in the horrifying mosaic of everything else, it was understandable how they might get lost in the shuffle.

Toni looked back to Briana’s freckle-less face. “What happened to you?”

“None of your business. Now please get off my doormat.” She nudged Toni’s foot out of the way, closing the door in her face. Distantly, Toni heard a deadbolt slide into place. This was fine, she tried to tell herself. She had a name now, had actually talked to her soulmate. Wasn’t her first choice for how conversations went, but it was better than nothing. Whatever she thought would happen today, they would still have time after. Probably.

* * *

Briana Banner didn’t learn about soulmates until she was thirteen. Her father homeschooled her until then and hadn’t considered it a priority. If her parents were soulmates, she never understood why. And the day her mother was killed, Briana was glad she’d never had a vision or seen a freckle cross her cheeks that would bind her to another person. By thirteen, she had enough of her own bruises and scars that needed to be hidden away.

Most Canvases wore long sleeves year round. Some wore gloves. Briana, despite not having a soulmate, took full advantage of this cultural allowance. She didn’t want the reminder of her past haunting her every day, and it was certainly no one’s business to see but her own. 

And now, of course, with a whole new set of scars from her ‘big breakthrough’ Briana was really glad she didn’t have a soulmate. She couldn’t damn anyone else with a connection to something so monstrous. So, for the second time in her life, with twice as much blood on her hands, Briana ran and started over.

She’d kill her father five times over again if she didn’t have to become the Hulk.

But Briana never got what she wanted. Well, that wasn’t true. She wanted this samosa and she had enough money to buy it as she made her way to the airport. Her location had been compromised here. She had tickets to Rio for her next hide out. The city itself would be stressful, but she’d find much fewer things to get angry about once she slipped away into the jungle.

Besides, her Portuguese was stronger than her Hindi.

Her Hindi was enough for her to make out the phrase ‘breaking news’ coming from one of the televisions in the little airport. She made her way over, curious if the destruction she’d caused here had gathered media attention yet. She thought she’d have more time to get away - the little village had been so remote. Every time she lost control, she told herself she’d do better next time, and yet it was always the same.

Instead of the carnage she’d already seen, the television showed new destruction. A missile explosion in Afghanistan. The CEO of Stark Industries gone missing, presumed dead. She didn’t understand the language well enough to get too many more details than that, but those were details enough. Something like dreaded pooled in her chest.

She didn’t have time to do anything about it before boarding her flight, but once they were in the air, she made her way into the tiny bathroom. Her heart rate pounded dangerously high and she took a deep breath. She would not Hulk out on a plane. This time would be different. No matter what she found, she could stay calm.

She unbuttoned her shirt revealing a spider web of scars that had not been there this morning. It took every ounce of practice she had to stay calm, but thankfully, this time she succeeded. Briana felt like she’d been living on borrowed time all her life. No one would want a match like her. But now, both her and her match were out of time.

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this as "ambiguous ending" because, despite being rather unhappy at the end of the written words, I imagine this AU would continue into the plot of Avengers 2012 and Toni and Briana would find each other again. I'm too tired to write that sequel right now, but I encourage anyone inspired to do so (and tag me so i can read it pls)!


End file.
